Join us this week as we look toward the cross and the empty tomb– Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our posts this week will follow some of the events leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as well as explore what these events and their implications mean to us. It all points to Jesus.
He knew it was coming. He felt the unmatched anxiety as the time drew near, asking His Father for the cup to pass from Him, sweating drops of blood. He was betrayed by a close friend, arrested in darkness, abandoned by his followers, put on trial with false witnesses, brought before officials, questioned, mocked, stripped, spat upon, jeered at, beaten almost to the point of death. Through His wrists they drove the nails, through His feet. Thorns pressed into his scalp. Open wounds and bruises seared and ached over every part of His body. The cross was raised upright, and there He hung. With searingly painful breaths and the utmost humiliation, there He died. Creator. King, Savior. Taking on the rejection of man and the wrath of God.

When we look to the cross, we cannot look with pity or anger or even shame. We look and think, "That is my cross. That is where I should be hanging. That is my place. And He is there." He was there. Once for all. Once and for all.

As the O.C. Supertones used to sing, "My sin yelled, 'Crucify' louder than the mob that day."

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” - 1 Peter 2:24

We look to the cross and see our guilt, but when we cling to the cross, it's blasted away by forgiveness, redemption, grace, mercy, and love. Jesus-- God with us-- died for us. That is the best new the world has ever heard. And it changes everything.